by Emma Janson
“Stop calling me ‘Dad’, and Jesus ain’t got nothin’ to do with this.” He grabbed at his crotch, which appeared to be growing under the silk he wore. “I’d say the nigga did something right with his life if you are his daughter. God damn, you are one fine piece of ass! Ooo-wee!” Her dad stomped his foot on the linoleum and laughed a laugh that wasn’t his own.
The magnitude of the stories she’d heard about her daddy’s episodes, she’d thought, had been embellished, but this insanity was too much for her to wrap her brain around. Gloria stepped back, afraid, and grabbed a knife from the knife rack. As she held it in front of her for protection, it shook. “What the fuck, Dad! Stop it!” Her voice trembled as fear mangled the smooth skin in her forehead.
“I’m not your dad. We could fuck. And I won’t stop. What you need to do is relax your dark chocolaty-fine pussy down on this chair before niggas start getting nervous. Now, I’m tired of this bullshit motherfuckin’ nightly decaf with no women to give me a blowjob afterward, which would make my whole cup of joe experience worth experiencing. You feel me? Church can suck my dick and so can this ungrateful, unproductive, judgmental, and hypocritical town your daddy likes to call home. It has packed his mind so full of shit that it’s coming out of his motherfuckin’ tear ducts when the man cries at night!”
The person that Gloria knew as her predictable father was not the person in the kitchen with her. She backed herself against the opposite side of the room, so she wouldn’t accidently stab him out of sheer terror, and knocked over a coffee cup that had been set too close to the edge of the counter. It crashed to the floor and splashed its contents onto the cuff of her pants.
“Here I am, doing my best to keep this nigga from losing his mind, and all he can do is...Didn’t I tell you to set your motherfuckin’ pussy down, bitch? You can’t hear? You slow?” His eyes, which were normally uplifted and honest, were strangely squinted into slits now and staring at her as if she were the one who was out of her mind.
“Dad, please, you are scaring me!” She hesitantly grabbed a kitchen table chair and pulled it as close to her as she could, the knife still taut and ready in her hand. She thought about her purse in the other room, that was sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, and how she was going to get to it if he continued to block the doorway.
“Stop calling me ‘Dad’!” he yelled so loudly that she jumped, sending tears streaming down her beautiful face.
Gloria shook and began to cry. “What the fuck should I call you?” she screamed in fear as she tried to sit down slowly, so as to not piss of the person who was standing between her and the front door. She’d watched a documentary about multiple personality disorders in her psychology class. One thing that stood out in her mind was how family members learned the value in remaining calm when introduced to an unexpected alter ego. Granted, the knife was a little dramatic, but she was trying.
He waited for her to sit down before he released some of the tension in his face. “Samuel. A nigga’s name is Samuel.” He seemed very proud and smug.
She cocked her head sideways as the knife began to shake uncontrollably in her hand, but couldn’t help starting to cry again in the chair. Samuel got frustrated with the whole situation and left the room so that he could find Mr. Jenkins’s car keys. Gloria was frozen in the chair and unable to move while she heard him going through drawers in her daddy’s room. When he came back to the kitchen he was in a suit that she didn’t know her daddy had owned.
“Ain’t this nigga got a wallet? What nigga don’t keep a set of keys and his wallet near a motherfucker? Why don’t you do me a favor, mocha, and get your ass up to help me find them. I ain’t fucking asking.” He snapped his fingers at her as if she was a dog.
Before this demand, she’d been scared stiff to move from the kitchen chair, but now Gloria got up and immediately ‘helped’ Samuel search for a wallet and keys while discretely inching her way closer to her purse in the living room, with her cell phone and her own set of car keys. Her only option was to call the police. Samuel was upstairs again when she finally reached her belongings. She dug through the bottom of her bag as the sounds of a man she didn’t know rummaged through shirts in an upstairs closet. Then she dialed the local police station number, which she’d had memorized since childhood.
The dispatcher, an old high school friend of her dad’s, answered. Gloria’s voice was shaken as she pressed the cell phone to her ear, making it burn into the side of her head. “Mrs. Amicy, it’s me, Gloria Jenkins.”
“Well, hello, Gloria! Didn’t know you were in town. Everything alright, sugar?”
“It’s Daddy.” She looked back to assure herself he wasn’t in the room while the sounds of wire hangers scratched across the bar they hung on.
“Oh Lord, not again. What is it this time? Where you at, sugar?”
“What? I’m at his house. Send someone right away. He’s gone crazy,” she tried to whisper into the bottom of her phone as she turned away from the hall and stepped deeper into the room, still pretending to search for a set of keys.
“Uh huh. Sure thing, sugar. Listen, he’s all talk and full of shit; he won’t hurt a fly. Kind of suave, though. I got to meet him the last time we booked your daddy. Got a foul mouth on him, don’t he?” When Mrs. Amicy laughed, you could tell she had been a smoker for years by the way phlegm bubbled and popped within each heave of her chest. “Uh huh, maybe I would have gone to prom with Samuel, had he been around in high school – if you know what I mean.” Winded, she managed to laugh again before she got back to business by clearing her throat and catching her breath. “I’m sorry, sugar; I got a car on their way. Listen, your daddy flew over the coo coo’s nest after saving that little Tiffany. He’s been this way for almost a year. When he comes back, just ask your daddy to sign some paperwork, so you can get the money your grandmother left him. That way, you can get him some real help. Your daddy was a good man, but God can’t help him now; the man needs drugs. Real strong drugs.”
“Jesus!” Gloria said a little too loudly. She didn’t remember Mrs. Amicy being this bold. Frankly, it was a bit too much to handle. Her manicured nails scratched at her forehead when her father startled her by unexpectedly walking into the living room. “Jesus ain’t got nothin’ to do with this.”
A shot of artery-bursting blood shot through every vein in Gloria’s body before she slowly turned to see which man was standing behind her in the archway. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end when she saw her daddy standing with the suit pants on and a different shirt: the maroon one he hadn’t worn since his anniversary the year before her mother had left him for a white guy.
“Where we going again?” Her authentic father tugged at the collar of his fine shirt. “It’s late. Don’t want to miss my shows, you know. Where did I put my readin’ glasses?”
Mrs. Amicy chimed in from the cell phone, “Oh see, is that your daddy? He’s back, ain’t he? Always predictable. Want me to call off the car?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your time.” Gloria then hung up on Mrs. Amicy to have a conversation with her dad, who was obviously unaware of the hell she’d just experienced with Samuel. “You know what, Dad? We should take a drive. You can put comfortable clothes on,” she lied.
At twenty-three years old – the age where most women are worried about finishing college and parties – Gloria made the awful decision to drive her dad to the local hospital to have him admitted on the behavioral health ward of the ninth floor. After a short explanation on the way there, he didn’t resist like she’d thought he would; rather, he cried in the car. Three days later, by police escort, Mr. Jenkins was taken to an institute in Columbus where, months later, he was officially evaluated and diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder – DID.
Gloria spent nine months working out legal issues and obtaining access to his money. By February of 2006, she began supporting him with it in a permanent home. Northern Lights was a new type of mental health fac
ility – a lovely institution on a vineyard.
Mr. Jenkins wasn’t bitter, really; he knew it was for the best, even though he didn’t get to walk his daughter down the aisle later that year or be there for the birth of his grandson. For her part, she tried to keep connected by sending photos of her progressing life, and even visited on his 60th birthday, but she was busy with her new family in a suburb surrounding New York City. Communication with her dad boiled down to the yearly birthday or Christmas cards, always with a JC Penny photo taped inside. Unfortunately, it got to the point where he watched his grandson become a boy through yearly school photos. She wanted to be there for her dad, but she also wanted things to be normal – and they were not. The distance helped her cope with her father’s disorder.
In his ten-year residency at the Northern Lights vineyard, Mr. Jenkins had come to enjoy making the annual ice wine. He looked forward to Saturday card games with German twins who couldn’t stop laughing. All of which was fine with him. He liked the idea of being able to have these routines and speak to doctors about his alternate personality without judgement. But he missed his daughter, missed his grandson, and hated his disorder for ruining his life.
Samuel’s hatred for his institutionalized life was at an entirely different level. He despised Mr. Jenkins and Gloria for putting him in the nuthouse.
If it hadn’t been for his girlfriend in the institution, he would have left. His girlfriend was the only thing keeping his hot temper at bay most of the time. Otherwise, he was amped enough to instigate fights with a homosexual brute nurse named Buck for catching him in the middle of a blowjob in the community craft room.
“How can you be a nigga and think it’s okay to pull a bitch away from another nigga’s dick? What’s wrong with you, motherfucker?” Samuel didn’t bother to put his erect penis back into his pants as he turned with his hands in the air like an angered baboon to face the orderly.
Buck, who’d pushed him away from a woman on all fours, was forced to use his deep man voice – albeit that it was still fluttery and wrapped in a southern-accented bow. “Stand back, Mr. Samuel, so help me God. You cannot engage in sexual activities with other patients, and you know it.”
“God has nothing to do with this. Ain’t that right, baby?” Samuel wiggled his hard dick in the air and moved forward again toward Belinda Jayne Beckler, who was still on her knees with her smeared red lipstick and her long blonde hair dangling over her shirtless body.
Buck put his hand firmly on Samuel’s chest to prevent him from taking another step. His stature was more than a match for the host body of Mr. Jenkins, who was slightly bow-legged and of average height, even if his alternate personality thought he had the physical ability to take Buck down.
Belinda, a twenty-seven-year-old bombshell, had poised her mouth open and closed her eyes in anticipation of his penis, but was now rudely restricted by another unwanted man who was not on her dick-sucking invite list. “Buck! God dammit, he is my boyfriend! Why don’t you leave us alone, for Christ’s sake?”
Samuel hushed her as politely as he could to address Buck in a man-to-man type of whisper – regardless of his naked lower half. “Nigga, listen to the girl now. If you weren’t such a butt pumper, you would feel another man’s desire for his woman’s pink mouth to wrap itself around this throbbing love stick. Now do a nigga a favor and walk away, lock the door behind you, and mind your own motherfuckin’ business!” Samuel turned to Belinda again and pushed his hips forward in a second attempt to reach his girlfriend’s mouth, but the hand on his chest and the locked arm that was preventing yet another blowjob were not budging.
“Mr. Samuel, put your penis away before I call for more security. Ms. Beckler, you know the rules and yet you continue to break them. Young lady, you have symptoms of destructive behaviors and hypersexuality. Did you take your pills today?”
“Yeah, the libido killers? Shit, Buck, you are my libido killer!” Belinda pushed her hair behind her head onto her back as she stood from the craft room floor with crushed dried noodles embedded into her knees. She mumbled as she brushed them off. “Go ahead and call security. It will take Arthur an hour to get here. The man needs to retire already, Jesus.”
While Samuel zipped his pants and yelled obscenities, Belinda sat down in a chair with her arms crossed, completely unconcerned with the smeared lipstick around her lips or the cool craft room air brushing across her nipples. Buck’s emergency phone rang in his pocket. Belinda, pissed that her fun was completely ruined, pouted like a child. “Why are you even in here, Buck? Aren’t you supposed to be getting some old ladies high right about now?” The phone rang again. “Just go before Samuel gets really angry or, worse, the host comes back. Shit, that man is boring, old and crotchety. I wouldn’t suck him off if he paid me.” She looked over to her boyfriend, who giggled while rubbing his crotch and winking back at her.
The phone rang again before Buck finally dug it out of the same pocket where he kept his Carmex and cosmetic mirror. Belinda just looked at him while he listened to the person on the other end, and then she quietly said, “Just go. I’ll calm him down for you.” She licked her lips and crinkled her nose with a squeal of excitement before she jumped up from the chair to push Buck toward the door, although he was already headed that way. “I’ll lock up, so you won’t get into trouble.” Then she shouted to Samuel, “Baby, he’s leaving! Bring your anaconda to Momma!”
When Buck was completely pushed into the hallway with his ear still glued to the phone, she locked the door and skipped over to a craft table that was scattered with scraps of paper and used staples. Samuel helped hoist her onto the table, where they could finish what they started.
BUCK OF ALL TRADES
Keeping up with the security and administration of medical marijuana was only a quarter of the stress in Buck Lynn’s life. After the craft room incident, and after safely getting Hilda and Ute Schmidt into the smoking room, somewhat on schedule, he briskly walked back to the front desk where his half-sister Lydia was in-processing a new Hispanic client. His blood still boiled from all the distractions and hindrances in his routine. Only a man who took pride in his job became distraught over a schedule setback, and so he wished Lydia shared his work ethic. She cared about her job, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to accomplish her daily tasks.
The initial real excuse for putting in a good word for her had been that he couldn’t keep up with his daily tasks and be the intake clerk at Northern Lights. Admittedly, if he’d had to swear on his momma – despite the family feud over their biological father’s military survivor benefits – he wanted to know his half-white sister out of sheer curiosity. Both were legitimate reasons anyway, in addition to the fact that he was overloaded with responsibilities at Northern Lights and couldn’t keep up. Now, though, after she’d been an hour late with her reminder call for medication, he wondered if bringing her onto the staff had been a good idea...especially when he saw the way she was looking at the Mexican standing at the front desk.
Buck had to interrupt the unprofessional connection between them so that he and Lydia could get back to work. When the Mexican looked at him, he was enamored; his eyes were beautiful and sparkling, but Buck remained professional when addressing him. “Excuse me, sir. Ms. Lydia, may I have a word with you, please?” His sweet voice was polite and melodic as he ticked his finger at her to gesture that she should come to where he was standing. She excused herself from her post and followed him down the corridor for privacy.
There was something extremely feminine about him as he connected a loose, massive clump of keys back onto his belt via a D ring and swayed his last few steps before spinning as if he was on the catwalk, making his final photo opportunity pose. His hand flicked into the air before resting at his face, his index and middle fingers pressed to the top of his forehead like a fag’s version of a dramatic fainting with an unnatural backward flex. His lips puckered in frustration before he popped his mouth and tongue, then placed his free hand on hi
s hip. Lydia knew he was mad, but she had never seen him this frazzled before. Before he could begin his oncoming, nagging speech, she apologized. “I’m sorry, Buck. I just forgot to call,” she tried to explain.
His eyes were wide and bulging as he stared at her, then held his finger up to shush her. “Don’t want to hear it. I have had the most atrocious day, and God bless your heart, you just made a simple mistake, albeit a severe one in the medical community. What shall we do about this? What shall we do?” He tapped his index finger to his lips as if to denote deep thought. He then looked over Lydia’s head to the hot Mexican guy who was now speaking to a bible-thumping patient at the front desk. “Lord and baby Jesus, bless the rest of my day. Get her away from him. You can tell me what happened later. Here, unlock the Schmidt twins from the smoking room in twenty minutes, but lock this tin up now before someone takes it. Has the new kid seen the doctor?”
“Yes, he just left the office. He’s cleared, and can have room 19. I’ve already paged for an orderly to escort him. Buck, I’m really sorry about not calling...”
“Mistake. Got it. Do not let it happen again. I’ll take care of escorting the new guy, and you just put this box away and let the twins out. They should be much calmer. Oh, make a note in Ms. Beckler’s file, too, please and thank you very much, ma’am.”
“My God, you caught them again? I don’t think they even try to hide it anymore. Geesh.” She crossed her arms and turned her body to catch a flirtatious glimpse of Ignacio when she felt him staring at her ass from across the room.
Keeping his voice down, Buck tried to redirect her attention in a hushed voice. “Keep your panties on. We do not have sex with clients, and you do not know what he is here for. He could be a serious case for the clinical wing.”
